JONES: Eskimos reloaded and ready to fire

JONES: Eskimos reloaded and ready to fire

Maybe it comes with opening the season against the free space on the CFL bingo card, the ownerless Montreal Alouettes who fired their head coach six days before they play here to kickoff the season Friday.

The Alouettes bring a 10-game losing streak against the Edmonton Eskimos to Commonwealth Stadium for this year’s lid-lifter.

It is, of course, the common condition of most teams to go into the season with unbridled enthusiasm and great expectations.

But when general manager Brock Sunderland and head coach Jason Maas met the media Sunday they’d removed most of the conservative caveats about rebounding from last season’s rare out-of-the-playoffs pratfall on the year Edmonton played host to the most ballistic Grey Cup festival of all time.

There was some angst with Maas at the start of training camp with more than half a roster of changes and having to play both pre-season games within a span of a dozen days.

Saturday evening the Eskimos announced their final cuts 32 minutes, allegedly because a practice roster player had to drive across town to sign something.

Sunday Maas came to Commonwealth Stadium prepared to make several statements about the team he was about to lead into the 71st season of Eskimos history with the ridiculous total of 27 new players on the active roster.

“One of our main objectives was to become a close-knit team and I think we accomplished that objective. We picked some really good guys,” said Maas of the challenge involved.

“The selection process was character based on everything to make sure we had the right guys in our locker room. I feel like we did a really good job of selecting the right people. Coming together as an entire team, a one-force unit was important to us and I think we did that.

“We’re excited about the journey we are about to begin.”

“We had 97 guys we brought in with a focus on character and it was a great group. It’s never easy these last couple days, letting good people go. But as you get into the first team meetings with the group you chose, you get excited about the journey you are about to set out to do.

“The main goal was to come out of camp as a unified team and I think we did that. That’s what I’m most excited about,” Maas concluded.

Historically, more than any other team in the league I believe, the Eskimos have put extra emphasis on character. And when you are making this many changes, Maas didn’t have the core group of veterans to transfer the traditions as in the past. So it became a personal priority. But there are a lot of beer league teams in sports featuring good guys. It was Sunderland’s job to make sure he was giving Maas the talent to work with.

“We’re going to compete for a Grey Cup and we feel like we have the roster to do that,” said Sunderland.

If he gets this team to a 15th championship after losing the league’s best quarterback in Mike Reilly and a plethora of proven veteran starters to free agency, the NFL and retirement, he’ll definitely have made his name in the league.

One thing Sunderland thought he saw with the new recruits resulted in him making the following big picture statement: “We’re getting better for the longer haul.”

Asked if there was any position or area he was really excited about, Sunderland identified it instantly.

“Our linebacking corps,” he said of the area where they lost J.C. Sherritt to the surprise of many, who chose retirement to become an assistant coach with the Calgary Stampeders.

“In the first pre-season game you saw what Don Unamba did. And Larry Dean has been as advertised,” he said of the dynamic duo acquired from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

“This is probably the best group of linebackers I’ve seen in Edmonton,” said Maas, the former Eskimos quarterback.

Sunderland didn’t take a breath after identifying the linebackers.

“I’d also say the defensive secondary, a position group that we were excited about going into the preseason. There were a couple of guys who really played well and I thought our man-to-man coverage was significantly better than it was the previous two years,” he said without even making mention of the strength of the group with Kwaku Boateng, Almondo Sewell and the defensive front four.

If there’s going to be a major identity change with this team it’s going to be on that side of the ball.

Defensive coordinator Mike Benavides and his passive philosophy have departed and taking over is Phillip Lolley and his aggressive ideology.

“We want to be aggressive in all three phases. We want to get after the quarterback whether it’s by hitting him or confusing him,” said Maas, who should have a pretty good read on that the following Friday when the Eskimos face departed leader Reilly in Commonwealth Stadium.

“On special teams we want to be dominant on our return game and cover units. Hustling to the ball is something we talked a lot about in this training camp. The more you hustle the luckier you get.

“That going to be a big mantra on our defence this year. Get to the ball. Hustle to the ball. Everybody.”

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